


Finding Family

by squirenonny



Series: Voltron: Duality [6]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Basically just a bunch of fluffy drabbles, D&D in space, Found Family, Gen, Keith is a cat, Keith is totally smitten, M/M, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Pidge | Katie Holt, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Prompt Fill, The Holts get to be happy for once!, Trans Male Character, Written to counteract the angst in the main story's current arc, pure fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-10-27 11:01:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 17,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10807746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squirenonny/pseuds/squirenonny
Summary: A collection of drabbles that don't fit neatly into the main Duality plotline. Most can be read independently of the main story, though each entry contains a note on where it fits in the timeline.Written based on prompts from readers.





	1. Sparring (Keith & Shiro)

**Author's Note:**

> Original prompt (from ptw30): "Do you have any fluff with Keith and Shiro from Duality? I love their friendship/bro-ship in that story (and all your stories, really). Thank you!!!"
> 
> Set sometime after chapter 5 of _Someplace Like Home_.

Shiro found Keith on the training deck.

This was not, in and of itself, a surprise. Keith didn’t exactly _live_ on the training deck, but he came closer than any of the other paladins. Keith claimed it was stress relief, Allura suspected it was a habit left over from a childhood shaped by the rigors of the Galra army, Lance called it an _unhealthy level of pent-up purple-furred fury_ , and Shiro? Shiro thought Keith just found it easier to deal with the clear-cut win-conditions of the castle’s gladiator than the rockier terrain of social interaction.

So Shiro wasn’t surprised to find Keith already warming up against a level two gladiator when he arrived for their daily spar.

He _was_ surprised to find Matt there with Keith, sitting against the wall with Pidge’s laptop balanced on his knees.

It was only to be expected, Shiro supposed. Matt and Keith had both been chosen by the Red Lion. They’d been training together more often recently. Somehow, Shiro hadn’t expected their relationship to extend beyond simple training.

Keith was the first to catch sight of Shiro standing in the doorway, his ear swiveling toward the sound of pneumatics. “End training sequence,” he called.

Only then did Matt realize he had company. He looked up at Shiro, smiled an easy grin, the kind Shiro still hadn’t quite gotten used to seeing from him—from anyone.

“Hey,” Matt said.

“Hey. I’m not interrupting, am I?”

Keith scoffed in a way that said Shiro should have known better than to ask that. Matt smiled at him, then shut the laptop. “Nah. We just finished an exercise with the mind meld device. Keith figured he might as well start his warm-ups, so I stuck around to keep him company.”

Shiro arched an eyebrow at Keith, who bared his teeth in a gesture that really wasn’t at all as intimidating as he meant it to be. Keith didn’t like people watching him train. Group sessions were one thing; in those everyone was focused on the exercise. But when people watched him, Keith felt like he was being judged. It made him push himself, and that usually meant he ended up getting hurt.

But not this time. Shiro supposed Keith and Matt really had grown closer these last few weeks. It was nice. Better than nice. Keith and Matt getting along… well, it made this place feel a little bit more like home. Shiro smiled, ignoring the way it made Keith squirm, and started his stretches.

“You gonna stick around, Matt?” Shiro asked, stretching his legs out in front of him on the floor and leaning forward to grasp his toes.

Matt planted a kiss on top of Shiro’s head. “I should get this back to Pidge before they realize I stole it,” he said. “Have fun. And Keith?”

Keith grunted.

“Try not to break my boyfriend.”

Keith chuckled, his grin tugging wider as Shiro scowled up at him. Matt just tussled Shiro’s bangs, then headed for the door, his hand tossed up in a wave.

After a few minutes, Keith joined Shiro in the stretches Keith had almost certainly skipped over during his own warm-up. Shiro really was fond of the kid, but sometimes he seemed nearly incapable of taking care of himself.

Then, of course, came the spar. Shiro was strong, and he’d learned to survive in the Arena. In a one-on-one fight, he was almost unbeatable. But Keith knew him, and he knew which buttons to push to gain the advantage. They started off leisurely, running through familiar forms as they danced across salon. Keith was quick, and light on his feet, but he telegraphed his moves.

Spotting an opening, Shiro stepped inside Keith’s guard, grabbed his wrist, and flipped him. He hit the ground flat on his back, the breath rushing out of him, and blinked up at Shiro.

“That’s the third time you’ve left yourself open to that one,” Shiro said, feigning disappointment. Keith was a quick learner in a lot of things, but defense was typically not one of them. He was too hotheaded, and he had a tendency to forget strategy, like proper stretching, when the prospect of battle presented itself. “Try to pay attention.”

Keith blew out a long breath, then moved lightning fast, spinning himself a hundred and eighty degrees so that Shiro, who had been standing a few feet from his head, suddenly found Keith’s leg sweeping his own feet out from under him.

He landed with an ungraceful yelp, which of course set Keith laughing. The little snot.

“That’s the first time you’ve fallen for that,” Keith said cheekily. “Guess neither of us is perfect.”

Shiro splayed his hand out across Keith’s face and shoved it away. “Well, since you’ve admitted you need more practice, maybe you’d like to join me on a loop around the castle.”

“ _What? Shiro!_ ” Keith shook his head rapidly, swatting at Shiro’s hand in a way that was _entirely_ too much like a cat batting at a hand giving out unwanted pets, and scrambled away.

“It’s just a little running,” Shiro said innocently. “You do it all the time in here.”

“Running is _boring_ ,” Keith protested. “We’re supposed to be sparring.”

Shiro picked himself up off the ground, grinning. “Okay, then,” he said, and darted forward, reaching up to scratch Keith behind the ear before he had a chance to defend himself.

Keith froze for half a second, gaping at Shiro like he couldn’t quite process what had happened. Shiro’s grin broadened as Keith’s shock yielded to fury.

Then the turned and bolted from the room, a hundred and thirty pounds of angry Galra charging after him. “Down, kitty!” Shiro called over his shoulder, not slowing as he skidded around the corner, flattened himself against the wall, and grabbed Keith as he ran past.

Keith shouted a protest, but Shiro had a lifetime’s worth of sibling roughhousing under his belt. He looped his arms under Keith’s, then pinned them behind his head and marched him toward the elevator. Keith writhed and twisted, snarling vague threats at Shiro to let him go.

They made it, eventually, to the rec room, and Shiro dumped Keith unceremoniously over the back of the couch onto the cushions. Keith twisted, glaring up at him. “What was that for? I thought we were going to spar.”

Shiro shrugged, hopping over the couch to sit beside him. “You’ve been working too hard lately. You deserve a break.”

“Or _you’re_ too tired to beat me,” Keith said, eyes narrowed. “And you’re trying to save your fragile ego.”

That startled a laugh out of Shiro, who kicked his feet up on the couch. “You remind me of my brother.”

“Your brother’s purple?”

Shiro snorted, grabbing a pillow from the couch beside him, and whacked Keith in the face. “He’s a smart-ass,” he corrected. “Like you.”

Keith’s foot shot out, connecting squarely with Shiro’s kidney—no small feat, considering he couldn’t see his target. They wrestled for a moment, Shiro ruffling Keith’s hair once more just to hear Keith growl. Eventually, Keith retreated the length of two couch cushions and pouted at him over crossed arms.

The sulking didn’t last long, though, as Keith’s indignation gave way to curiosity. “You’ve never talked about your brother before.”

Shiro shrugged, turning his gaze to the ceiling. “It’s been a long time since I thought about him. About _Earth._ I haven’t seen it in a year and a half.”

“You’ll make it back there,” Keith said fervently. “You’ll see your brother again.”

Smiling, Shiro met Keith’s eyes. He and Akira used to joke about adopting a kid brother, since neither of them really had a younger sibling to tease (however much Akira tried to play up his twenty minutes of seniority.) Somehow, Shiro doubted Akira had been anticipating fuzzy purple alien to fill that role. “I can’t wait to introduce you.”


	2. Small Hours (Lance & Pidge)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original prompt (from anon): "Got anything fluffy for Lance and Pidge?"
> 
> Set sometime between chapters 9 and 13 of _Someplace Like Home_.

For once, nearly all of the paladins were sleeping. Shiro had dragged Matt away from his holoprojector with its model of Shiro’s cybernetic arm sometime around midnight, and Hunk had turned in around the same time. Keith and Allura had worn each other out on the training deck; Zelka, the Galra refugee who had become Coran’s lieutenant, had relived him for the night. And Shay was actually responsible enough to go to sleep on her own. (Miracle of miracles.)

As far as Lance could tell, it was just him and Pidge left chasing the cryptid of a restful night’s sleep.

Lance had tried to sleep, really he had, but Pidge had asked to use the headphones/mp3 player they’d rigged up for Lance back when all this began. Music helped them focus on coding, apparently, and Altean ear buds (ear _worms_ more like) were, “among the ten worst sensory experiences in the universe.” (Pidge’s words, though Lance tended to agree.)

Lance had been happy to hand the headphones over, not least of all because they were Pidge’s in the first place. But tonight his mind just wouldn’t shut up, and his sleep mask alone wasn’t enough to trick himself into passing out.

In all honesty, he’d expected Pidge to have turned in sometime in the hour or two Lance had spent tossing and turning, his mind jumping from the unfinished sewing projects on his desk to refugees sleeping two floors below to the Blue Lion, powered down for the night but still aware enough to run off across the stars at the beckoning of Lance’s semi-conscious wanderlust.

When the insomnia finally crossed the threshold from “mildly annoying” to “Keith levels of stab-itude,” Lance groaned and dragged himself out of bed, fully expecting to go down to a dark workstation and grab the unattended headphones with zero interference. He could always return them to Pidge in the morning.

But Pidge was still up when Lance reached Green’s hangar, their head silhouetted in the lonely light of their desk lamp. They sat with their back to the door, headphones on, and screamed loud enough to rouse the dead when Lance lifted one side of the headphones and whispered, “Do you have any idea what time it is, you little night terror?”

Seizing hold of the table to keep from toppling, Pidge whipped around, glaring at Lance, who burst out laughing, holding his hands up in surrender.

“Sorry! Sorry. Old habits, you know?”

Pidge’s face softened, but they still punched him in the arm as they lowered the headphones to dangle around their neck. The faint, tinny sound of some kind of electronica drifted up from the speakers—not something Lance recognized, but driving enough to keep sleep at bay.

“Everything okay?” Pidge asked, turning back to their laptop.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Lance said, shrugging. “I was kinda hoping you’d be done with the headphones by now.”

Not looking up, Pidge pulled off the headphones and held them out toward Lance, who took them and frowned.

“You’re not planning on going to sleep anytime soon, are you?”

“I have work to do,” Pidge said.

“And it can’t wait till tomorrow?”

“No.”

The Green Lion rumbled from the shadows on the far side of the hangar, the sound unintelligible to Lance but enough to make Pidge scowl in her direction. “I’m fine,” they said, turning the glare on Lance as though expecting an argument.

Lance just waved a hand, scrolled through the playlists stored on the headphones until he found something cheerful, then turned up the volume enough that Pidge would be able to hear it, too. Then he flopped backward over the far side of Pidge’s desk and started drumming on the air overhead.

“I don’t know how you’re not dancing to this, Pidge, seriously,” he said—not quite an invitation, but close.

For a few minutes, Pidge continued to type. Eventually, though, they sighed and looked up at him. “If I dance with you, will you stop pretending you’re not tired and go to bed?”

“Only if you do the same.” Lance held out a hand toward them.

“Not happening.”

Lance shrugged and went back to air-drumming. They’d cave eventually. They always did. Funny thing about Pidge—they never seemed to get tired until they realized they were keeping someone else up.

Sure enough, Lance only had to wait another two songs before Pidge snapped their computer shut and stood. “Alright, fine. Bedtime. You tyrant.”

“Ah, ah, ah.” Lance wagged his finger under their nose. “Dance first.”

Pidge rolled their eyes. “You’re already dreaming, Sleeping Beauty,” they said, then made the mistake of grabbing Lance’s hand to pull him to his feet. Lance didn’t let go once he was vertical, but pulled Pidge into a waltz—awkward, as the song they were listening to was very much a march, but they were both a little punch drunk, anyway. Pidge held out for a while, but soon enough they were laughing into Lance’s shoulder as he danced them out the door.

Halfway back to the bedrooms, laughter turned to yawns, and Lance gave up on Cha Cha Sliding to a power ballad. He turned, crouched down, and hoisted Pidge up on his back.

“I’m not a baby,” Pidge muttered.

“Never said you were,” Lance replied, and carried them back to their room.

They stopped him just before he left. “Almost forgot. I found one of those rebel radio stations the other day. With the alien music?” They yawned. “Started saving things that made me think of you. It’s the new playlist on there.”

Lance smiled. “Thanks, Pidge.”

They mumbled something that might have been _you’re welcome_ , and Lance left them to their sleep, searching for this new playlist as he headed back to his room. He found it easily enough—there were only about a half dozen playlists to scroll through. It sat innocuously between _Sleepy Time Soundtrack_ and _*Yells Incomprehensibly.*_

It was called _Welcome to the Space Jam._

Lance burst out laughing, pressed play, and fell asleep to the sound of alien instruments that managed, somehow, to sound like rainstorms.


	3. Space D&D (Lance, Allura, & Coran)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original prompt (from phoenixyfriend): "Do you have anything in mind for the Alteans and Lance? That last chapter had some interesting stuff on Allura's side, and I've loved all the eshet with Coran, but... well, I'm a sucker for fluff."
> 
> Set at some nonspecific point after chapter 7 (but presumably before chapter 16) of _Someplace Like Home_. There will absolutely be more D &D shenanigans moving forward.

“I kick down the door!”

“Okay, roll strength?”

Coran glanced down at his character sheet, then at the cheery blue dice Lance had made with the castle’s fabricator. Such odd shapes, these dice. There was, of course, a ten-sided die like the ones Coran was used to (though these had Earthian numerals on them underneath the Altean), but there were others, as well—d20s, d4s…

“Which one is strength, again?”

It had to have been the tenth time Coran had asked a similar question—to say nothing of Allura—but Lance didn’t seem the least bit put out by the confusion. Perhaps he’d expected this game of his to have a steep learning curve.

It was a curious game, D-and-D. Lance had compared it to eshet on more than one occasion, and Coran could certainly see the parallels, even if the Earth game seemed somewhat more rules-heavy than Coran was used to.

“d20,” Lance said, reaching out to tap the appropriate die.

Coran gave it a roll, then leaned forward to read the result. “Fifteen.”

“Aaaaaand?” Lance prompted.

Ah, right. _Bonuses_. Coran consulted the stat sheet Lance had made for his character, a paladin named Nathan Ford.

Pidge, upon overhearing this, had actually set aside their computer to complain that, “Nate is _not_ a paladin, Lance. And you call yourself a geek.”

“A, yes he is. B…” Lance jabbed his finger in their direction. “ _You_ don’t get to challenge my geek cred. _You_ let me down by not having the players handbook saved on your hard drive. This is practically a homebrew at this point–and I haven’t had a chance to playtest! Coran and Allura deserve better than to be my guinea pigs!”

Pidge rolled their eyes. “Excuse me for not anticipating starting a campaign at boot camp while _illegally searching for my family_.” They quirked a smile as Lance stuck his tongue out. “Besides, Nathan Ford is a glorified NPC taken over by the DM’s kid brother who can’t decide what class he wants to be.”

For some reason that made Lance laugh, and the debate was soon cut short by Allura asking which lion Nathan Ford was bonded to.

“No, no,” Lance had said. “Earth paladins are different from Voltron paladins. There are no lions. Usually.”

Coran had feigned offense (though in all honesty he was far too intrigued by the whole system to care much about whether or not his character piloted a lion, especially when the “campaign” they were running took place entirely inside a cave too small for the hypothetical lion to have fit.)

Nathan Ford had a plus-two to strength (earning another critique from Pidge and a cry of, “It’s a pick-up game, Pidge, shut it!” from Lance), which brought Coran’s strength roll up to seventeen—enough, it seemed, to successfully kick down a door.

“I should hope _so_ ,” Allura muttered. “You said his character’s an Altean paladin, did you not? Alteans are quite a physically capable species. A simple wooden door is no barrier to us.”

Lance propped his cheek on a hand, giving her a crooked smile. “Well, sure, but that’s the beauty of D&D—things that should be impossible can happen if the dice love you, and things that should be easy can get you killed if you crit fail.”

“Crit fail?” Coran asked.

Lance’s grin was not at all reassuring.

Allura, however, had turned her attention to her dice, poking them unenthusiastically. “I still don’t see what the point of this is. The dice, the… _physical_ stats references… A computer could run the probabilities much more efficiently. And _accurately_.”

Lance shrugged. “Sure, but that makes it too much like a video game.”

“That’s bad?” Allura asked. “You and Pidge seemed quite fond of your ‘video games’ before.”

“They’re different,” Lance said. “Sometimes you just want some good, old-fashioned pen-and-paper shenanigans.”

Allura looked up sharply. “I thought you said this was a solemn strategic tradition among your people. _Diplomacy and Defensibility,_ right?”

There was a snort from Pidge’s corner of the rec room. Allura’s suspicion sharpened.

Flailing, Lance rushed to reassure her. “It is! It is. Very serious business. Totally legit. But in a… laid-back, friendly, team-building sort of way? Like the slumber party! Or how the castle teaches kids to speak Altean with those hilarious, _totally not deadly at all_ holograms that murder you for giving a wrong answer.”

“Bluff check,” Pidge muttered, earning another scowl from Lance.

“Ah,” Allura said, settling back in her seat. “I see.” Her eyes sparkled in a way that told Coran she didn’t for one second believe this game was as big a to-do as Lance claimed. But it was obviously important to him in some capacity. For that reason, if no other, she would give it a try.

“Right.” Lance shook his head, swiping a tablet screen where he’d made notes for himself. “So Nate kicks down the door. Inside you find a large, open room partially lit by a small glowing crystal. There are two Galra soldiers inside and what looks like a cage suspended from a ceiling. Unfortunately, you don’t have time to look around, because the Galra soldiers just saw a quiznaking door get kicked off its hinges.” Lance set down his tablet, laced his fingers together, and gave Coran and Allura a devious smile. “Roll for initiative.”


	4. Unspoken (Shiro & Akira)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original prompt (from livetoflyfreely): "I would love a little drabble on Shiro and Akira growing up! Maybe Akira coming out, them entering the Garrison, or some other pivotal point in their relationship? I'm not too picky!"
> 
> Pre-canon. Contains lowkey misgendering while Akira is still closeted.

Sometimes Akira thought his brother had known the truth as long as he had. Longer, maybe, because it was some time before Akira had been able to put into words why it was so important to him that their imaginary kid sibling be a brother.

Akira had never been shy about who he was. When he was nine, and his parents signed him up for a summer gymnastics program and Takashi for space camp, Akira had threatened to take the garden shears to the neon pink t-shirt proclaiming him a gymnast-in-the-making. There was a lot of shouting, a few angry tears, and a door slammed his his mother’s face.

An hour later, Takashi had slipped in under the corner of Akira’s impromptu blanket fort and said they were both going to space camp.

“How’d you manage that?” Akira asked, leaning against his shoulder, too tired to be angry anymore.

Takashi smiled. “Three weeks is a long time to be away from home all by myself,” he said. “I told them I was too scared to go alone.”

When they turned ten, Akira found himself faced with a sea of startlingly pink wrapping paper. The night before the party, someone switched the tags on exactly half the presents (only half; Akira wasn’t going to condemn Takashi to _that_ much floof), so each of the brothers now had equal parts pink and blue gift boxes.

His parents knew at once what had happened—of course they did; it wasn’t the first prank Akira had pulled—but before they could coax a confession out of him, a shame-faced Takashi quietly fessed up, fiddling with the silver ribbons on a pink polka dotted package.

“We’re twins,” he said simply when his parents asked why. “We’re just gonna share the stuff anyway.”

That was the last year their parents bought either of them Barbie dolls or notebooks with fairies on the cover, and by the time the next leap year rolled around, every present in sight was solidly space-themed except for a pair of packages from jii-chan—a model airplane for Akira and a beautifully crafted porcelain doll for Takashi, and no one in the house could prove they hadn’t come labeled that way.

(For once, Akira’s vow of innocence was the honest truth.)

When they were eleven, and Takashi developed a brief but passionate love for their town’s little league team, he once spent an entire day talking about how, if they _did_ have a brother, he could teach him how to play, could be his coach, and wouldn’t that be great? Akira lasted until three o’clock before whacking Takashi on the back of the head with a pool noodle and saying, “Well, what’s the point of waiting for a baby brother? Just teach me.”

Takashi’s smile said he’d been been expecting Akira to speak up sooner.

When they were fourteen, sitting on the footbridge at the park near their house, feet dangling over a sluggish, half-dried stream, popsicles melting down their hands, Akira finally found the words.

“Maybe we don’t need a brother,” Akira said, heart pounding. “Maybe… maybe it can just be me?”

He’d planned something much more eloquent than that. Something clearer. But his tongue felt too large for his mouth, his eyes stinging with tears that didn’t seem inclined to wait for a reason to fall. His popsicle dripped artificial blue on his sneakers.

“I don’t see why we have to choose,” Takashi said, his eyes on a pair of dogs racing each other for a tennis ball on the far side of the park. “Maybe I _want_ two brothers.” He smiled as Akira turned to gape at him. “Maybe I’m just that selfish that way, you ever think of that?”

“You?” Akira asked, eyes watering for an entirely different reason now. “Selfish?” He snorted, a knot inside him loosening. “I don’t buy it.”

Takashi turned then, flashing a crooked smile and staring Akira dead in the eyes as he leaned over and bit off the top third of Akira’s popsicle. Akira howled a protest as Takashi took off running, laughing over his shoulder and scarfing down the rest of his own treat before Akira could demand his fair repayment.

They returned home that evening sticky from sugar and muddy from wading through the creek bed, and after washing up and eating dinner and watching a movie with their parents, they returned to the bedroom they still shared (neither of them having any inclination to demand more privacy.) It was then, the last light of dusk hanging over the dolls lined up on Takashi’s headboard, the model airplane froze mid-flight above Akira, that Takashi whispered, “What should I call you?”

“Akira,” he whispered back, afraid that to say it any louder might shatter the illusion. “My name’s Akira.”

Takashi hummed, rolled over, and said, “Okay. Goodnight, Akira.”

Akira pulled his pillow over his face and smiled.


	5. Stars (Shiro/Matt)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original prompt (from anon): "If you're still taking fluff ficlet requests, some Shiro/Matt? (Because I'm dying after the ending of that last chapter I need my sons to be happy)"
> 
> Set in or around chapter 15 of _Someplace Like Home_.

“Remind me again why I’m blindfolded?”

Matt shushed Shiro, flicking his nose. Shiro flinched back, mouth dropping open in a look of mild offense that made Matt grin. It was early, the castle utterly silent except for their breathing and the shuffle of their footsteps. The close walls of this corridor swallowed the sound, as it swallowed the dim light of the illumination strips running along the floor. They might have been walking in an isolated bubble of reality, surrounded by nothingness on all sides.

“You’re blindfolded,” Matt said, “because this is _supposed_ to be a surprise.”

Shiro quirked an eyebrow over the top of his black sleep mask—a gift from Lance, who’d made everyone their own silk sleep mask during one of his bouts of hyper-productivity. “A surprise?” Shiro asked. “In the Red Lion’s tower? Interesting.”

Matt stopped walking, gaping at Shiro in disbelief. “You—how did you— _that’s not fair, Takashi!_ ”

With a smug grin, Shiro walked on, still blindfolded, tugging on their joined hands to pull Matt along. “It’s not _my_ fault you have no sense of direction. Some of us happen to enjoy knowing where we’re going.”

Matt snorted, quickening his stride to pass Shiro and hip-checking him for good measure. “Where’s the adventure in that?” he asked. “Now let me lead before you break your nose on one of these walls.”

“Like you’d let me run into anything.”

“If you keep ruining my surprises I might,” Matt warned. Shiro only laughed.

They walked a little longer in silence, letting the sounds of the castle envelop them. There were the usual sounds—the rush of air through the vents, the hum of Quintessence in the walls—but in the small hours, the castle seemed somehow _more._ Sometimes, when sleep turned elusive, Matt swore he could hear the lions. There was Red, of course, a steady purr that lodged deep in his chest. She was by far the loudest of the lot, followed closely by Black (louder than usual with Shiro so close) as a whisper of thunder on each of Shiro’s exhales.

Yellow and Blue and Green were more distant still, their voices coming and going with no discernible pattern. Yellow was a rumble a little lower and a little rougher than Red’s purr, which for the longest time Matt had mistaken for just another one of the castle’s systems churning away underfoot. Blue lived in the white noise, a voice in the silence that always made Matt think of holding a seashell to his ear. And Green—the sound of wind in leaves that Matt swore was actually coming from Ryner’s garden in the Green Lion’s hangar.

Aside from Red, who always waited at the edge of Matt’s mind, the lions never spoke outside of this waking dream. Matt might have thought it was his own mind playing tricks on him, except that Shiro heard the voices, too, when a nightmare woke him early or the burdens of leadership kept sleep at arm’s length.

Dreams, Shiro called them. Lion dreams.

No one knew if the lions slept, not even Allura, but Shiro was adamant that they did, and that these nightly disturbances were their dreams seeping out through the walls of the castle to comfort fellow restless minds. It was a soothing thought, whether or not it was true.

Tonight the early wake-up was strictly coincidental. Nightmares and stress having ruined whatever remained of Matt and Shiro’s circadian rhythm, they sometimes found themselves waking in the middle of the night for no reason at all. It had been Shiro this time, and though he’d tried to get up without disturbing Matt, neither was surprised when Matt woke anyway. He slept lightly these days, and woke easily.

Once they got through the usual routine—a soft apology from Shiro for waking him; a long, quiet look from Matt to assure himself that it hadn’t been a nightmare this time—they got up and got dressed, starting their day three hours earlier than they’d planned to.

It wasn’t the first time this had happened, and Matt didn’t waste time mourning the lost sleep. Once they were up, they were up for the day, whether they’d managed two hours of sleep, or ten.

Soon enough they reached their destination, the observation room at the top of Red’s tower. Matt had found this place while exploring with Keith, though discovering the room’s special function had been something of an accident—an educational accident at that; Matt had learned three new Galran curses that day.

Matt pressed his hand against the door controls and led Shiro inside, dimming the lights until the only illumination came from the instruments lining the walls and the clear glass dome overhead, which gave an unobstructed view of the stars outside.

Turning, Matt went up on his toes and kissed Shiro’s cheek as he pulled off the sleep mask.

Shiro smiled at him, his eyes reflecting the soft blue glow of the instrument panel beside them. Even in the semi-darkness, Matt could see the curve of his lips, the way his eyes went soft at the corners. After a moment, Shiro tilted his head back to stare at the stars, but Matt kept his eyes on Shiro.

“It’s beautiful, Matt,” Shiro said, voice soft. “Thank you.”

“That wasn’t the surprise.” Matt smiled as Shiro turned toward him, head tilting to the side in confusion. Rather than answer, Matt simply reached out and pressed a switch.

A shimmer ran through the air, not quite light, not quite motion. With the lights on, it had given Matt the impression of a mirage, the room rippling very slightly as the energy passed. This time, wrapped in darkness, it felt more like the way light changed in his peripheral vision: a slightly brighter glow that faded when he looked directly at it.

Shiro began to ask a question, then cut off with a gasp as his feet left the ground.

“So it turns out you can switch off the artificial gravity on the observation decks,” Matt said, holding onto the instrument panel with one hand and keeping the other wrapped around Shiro’s wrist. Shiro turned his head, and though Matt couldn’t see his expression, he heard the change in his breathing—deeper, slower than it had been before. “Just like old times, right?”

Shiro’s laugh was bright and full of awe, and Matt felt his spirits lift just hearing it.

They were both rusty at this, the slow, thoughtful dance of outer space. Matt had lost the easy confidence with which he’d navigated the _Persphone,_ bumbling around instead like a toddler still learning his own body, but Shiro’s guiding hand and patient smile smoothed the edges of his frustration. For a few minutes, it seemed they’d found their way back to before all this—before the war, before the captivity—back to when space had been wide and full of wonder.

In Shiro, the change was even more pronounced. There had always been something graceful about the way he moved in zero gravity, and he fell back into those patterns after just a few minutes, the lines of his body loose as he pushed himself across the room. Some people never learned to move like this, but Shiro might as well have been born to it. He made his way upward to the highest part of the dome, then pushed off one wall and rebounded off the opposite wall as Matt began to follow.

They met in the middle of the dome, forward momentum turning into a spin as they caught each other’s arms, feet hooking together until it felt like they were dancing, pressed together along the full length of their bodies. Matt’s hair floated loose around his head, and for a moment he forgot the ache in his knee.

“Good surprise?” Matt asked, pulling Shiro closer. The instruments below them seemed far away, the glass around them insubstantial. They drifted among the stars, weightless, timeless, just the two of them in all the universe. The Red Lion purred away in Matt’s mind, all warmth and contentment. When he breathed in, he smelled Shiro. When he closed his eyes, he felt the pulse of Shiro’s heart against his chest.

Shiro pressed his forehead against Matt’s. “The best,” he whispered, and pulled him into a kiss.


	6. Flair (Lance & Val)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No1DigiBakuFan mentioned wanting to see Lance's coming out to his family and.... guess what.
> 
> Pre-canon.

Lance was nine when his cousin Val was caught kissing another girl in the bathroom at school. The classmate who found them told a friend, who told a clique, who told an entire class, and soon everyone had heard the story. An hour later, Val’s parents received a call asking them to come talk to the principle about their daughter pouring milk over another student’s head.

Once she heard Val’s side of the story, of course, Tía Carmen turned on the teachers. She went quiet, then asked the principle whether this other girl’s parents had also been called to the office to discuss the way their daughter talked about her classmates, and what the school planned to do to prevent something like this from happening again.

To hear Val tell it, her mother had been a dragon—fire in her eyes, smoke curling from her nostrils, and everything. (“I’ll bet she would’ve breathed honest-to-god fire, too,” Val told Lance after it was all over. “Except the principle was already begging for mercy.”)

Val did end up with an hour of detention for the disruption, but by the time Lance heard any of what had happened, Tía Carmen had taken Val to get a manicure (blue, pink, and purple, for both of them), Val had both a rainbow scarf and a pair of fluffy bi pride socks, and Lisa, Val’s girlfriend, had been invited to Family Night.

As far as coming-outs went, Lance figured Val had already claimed top prize for drama. He briefly entertained notions of eloping with his freshman year crush, then sending his parents a postcard from Vegas that said, “I’m bi! And married!’

Of course, that plan would have to wait for Lance to age a few years. And actually confess to his crush…

So he resigned himself to a distant second place and stopped looking for a big gesture to go along with his coming out.

“Do I even really _need_ to come out? Officially?” Lance asked Val, hugging her stuffed tiger to his chest as Val gave him a pedicure.

Val looked up at him, a lock of curly brown hair wriggling free of her headband. “At this point? I think it would be a little redundant.”

“Right?” Lance flung his hands wide, all but chucking Val’s tiger across the room. “It’s obvious, isn't it?” He was fifteen now, fast approaching his official entrance into the Galaxy Garrison, and, sure, he’d never _officially_ dated anyone before, but he’d flirted plenty. With all sorts of people! Often in front of the rest of his family! He was an equal-opportunity flirt, and he figured his parents would have had to be _deliberately_ obtuse not to realize the truth yet.

Shaking her head, Val leaned back to study her work--four silver nails, with bright blue for his big toes. They hadn’t had nearly enough chances for their semi-regular pampering dates since she started college, and they were only going to get less frequent once Garrison classes started up in a few weeks.

“Do you _want_ an official coming-out?” she asked.

Lance leaned back on his hands, one finger fiddling with the tiger’s nose. “I dunno. Kinda? I’ve never really acknowledged it, y’know? Shouldn’t I at least say something?”

“So just walk into the kitchen and say, Mamá, Papá, I’m gay.” She wiggled her fingers in, frankly, the squarest jazz hands Lance had ever seen.

Lance turned his nose up with a sniff. “I’m _bi_ , thank you very much.”

Val grinned, then smothered it quickly and gave a solemn nod. “You’re right. That was awful of me. Somebody revoke my bi card.”

“We get _cards_?” Lance asked. “Nobody told me we got cards.”

“Sure we do. They’re cheap and covered in glitter and they say, _fuck you, I exist._ ”

Lance burst out laughing, flopping backwards onto the mound of pillows at the head of Val’s bed. She smacked the top of his foot and told him to sit still.

“Okay, but it needs to be bigger than that,” Lance said, staring at the ceiling fan. He blinked, and the globe lights left shadows on his eyelids. “It’s, like, a really _frickin’_ big part of me, Val.”

“Shout it from the roof?” she suggested.

“Tempting,” Lance said, “but also a little too New Year’s.”

Val snorted, no doubt remembering the year they’d spent the entirety of January first on the swing set in the back yard, screaming _Happy New Year!_ to the birds until their voices started to crack and the neighbors came pounding on the door asking the adults to corral their kids. Sebastian, who had been inside reading the whole time, just shook his head when they came shuffling in.

Suddenly, Val looked up, and the gleam in her eyes said Lance was going to like whatever idea she’d just had.

Twenty minutes later, Lance and Val were called down to dinner. There was a moment of confused silence when Lance appeared, dressed in a pair of Val’s favorite blue yoga pants, a purple halter top, and a neon pink headband, the word _bisexual_ written across his forehead in crimson lipstick.

Val, filming the whole thing on her cell phone from the doorway, finally lost the last of her composure and doubled over laughing. Lance’s mother gave him a confused, but supportive, kiss on the cheek, and Mateo asked whether he was supposed to be a superhero or something.

(It was unanimous—Val may have won in Drama, but Lance took Flair by a landslide.)

As they were sitting down to dinner, Val slipped a note to Lance.

No, not a note. A… business card? The contact information on the front—for some “media specialist” Lance had never heard of—had been scribbled out with black sharpie.

“Turn it over,” Val said as she reached past him for the salt. Lance did so and found the back of the card pasted over with sparkly purple and blue star stickers, and one lonely pink flower. The only bit of paper that showed through was in the very center, where Val had written _bi card_ in an overly-ornate script.

Lance looked up at her, fighting down a smile. “You weren’t kidding when you said it was cheap.”

“Eh.” Val shrugged, ruffling his hair. “I’ll make you a better one when I’m not digging through the stickers that have been buried in my closet for ten years.”

Lance gasped, clutching his bi card to his chest. “No. This is mine now, and you can’t have it back.”

“At least let me get it laminated for you.”

Lance looked down at the card, contemplating. “Fine,” he said. “But _just_ lamination. Everything else stays.”

“Whatever you say, baby cousin.”


	7. Co-Conspirators (Maka & Wyn)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original prompt (from Pechat): "For the fluff prompts: Galra kids and/or Space Caterpillars! Because fluffy fur in a fluff fic makes Fluff²."
> 
> Set a few days after chapter 20 of _Someplace Like Home_. (Well...It might be more accurate to say that it's set in a specific upcoming chapter, but as long as you've read chapter 20 there's no spoilers to be had, so I'm not going to place it more specifically than that.)

“What are _you_ doing here, Maka?” Edi demanded sourly.

"Oops," Wyn whispered, smothering a laugh.

Maka cringed, shooting Wyn a dirty look. He didn’t look the least bit sorry, never mind it had been _his_ job to act as lookout and Edi had still somehow managed to sneak up on them. So much for super sensitive Altean hearing.

Maka turned slowly, focusing on keeping his ears still as he gave Edi his best, most innocent smile. “Wyn wanted to see Bee’s workroom,” he said. “I’m just trying to make him feel welcome.”

Edi glanced toward Wyn, who wasn’t trying to hide so much as gaping openly at the cramped workspace around him—not a large space, but packed so full of busted machinery, spare parts, models, tools, and unfinished projects that whenever Maka came here he felt like he was walking into a freaky pocket dimension where robots went to die. Edi's scowl softened and her ears twitched. She really should have listened to Maka when he warned her to get that under control. Those ears of hers broadcast her feelings to everyone in the room. Right now they said that Edi had a weak spot for Wyn. Everyone in the castle did, maybe because he was the first Altean survivor they’d come across; maybe because he was shy, and adults always thought shy kids were perfect little angels. At the very least, everyone seemed to think Wyn could do no wrong.

That was exactly what made him such a good co-conspirator.

“Wyn,” Edi said, all sweet smiles now. “I’d be happy to give you a tour if you like, but I’m afraid Maka’s just using you to give himself an excuse to make mischief.”

Blinking a few times, Wyn turned to Edi. “Using me?” he asked in that small, uncertain voice of his. He turned to Maka, face a perfect image of betrayal except for the spark of amusement buried in his eyes.

It was funny, Maka thought, how much emotion Altean eyes showed. Maka was sure Wyn’s ears would have been shivering like a furless yupper in a blizzard if he’d been Galra, but Altean ears were basically useless. Especially when they couldn’t even hear properly.

Edi couldn’t see Wyn’s eyes, though. Nor could Bee behind her (still mostly engrossed in her current project, but aware of the drama enough to shoot Maka a glare.) Both of them acted like he’d just spit in their food goo.

 _Great,_ he thought, resisting the urge to stomp on Wyn’s foot. _Now I’m in trouble with the girls._

“I don’t believe you, Maka,” Edi said, crossing her arms. “You’ve always been an irresponsible little thing, but I never thought you would be selfish enough to hurt Wyn's feelings for your own amusement.”

Edi had been spending way too much time with the adults lately. She could lecture with the best of them—even had a halfway decent disappointed face (for all the good it did against Maka.) Maka knew she had her heart set on piloting the Black Lion one day, but she wasn’t even thirteen yet. Couldn’t she lighten up, just a little?

Sighing, Maka resigned himself to a lecture.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Edi finally wound down, gave Maka one last scowl for good measure, then ordered him out of the workshop. Wyn started to follow, but Edi reached out to stop him.

“No, no. _You_ don’t need to go, Wyn.”

“I dunno...” Wyn glanced at something big and metal and shiny sitting on the table beside him. “It’s probably safer if I’m not around so much tech...”

Bee’s eyes went wide. “It’s _true_?” she shrieked, all but launching herself across the table. No doubt she wished Wyn was a machine instead of a boy so she could take him apart to figure out how he worked. “Did you _really_ disintegrate an entire warship?”

Wyn shrugged, and Maka had to make a quick getaway before he laughed and ruined the whole job. When Wyn joined him a moment later, Maka gave him a shove, and Wyn laughed.

“So you can blow up ships with your magic Altean powers now?” Maka teased.

“Of course not,” Wyn said, tucking his hands behind his back the way Coran always did and walking away down the corridor. “It’s cause of my magic _robeast_ powers.”

He sounded serious, but Maka couldn’t see his face to know whether or not he was laughing with his eyes. Frowning, Maka opened his mouth to try for something closer to sympathy than snark--only to have Wyn burst out laughing, glancing back at Maka with mischief in those strange, bright eyes of his. Huffing, Maka stalked after Wyn, glaring at the pointy, fleshy things on the side of his head. “I hate your ears.”

Wyn stopped, whirling toward Maka. He looked so genuinely offended at the statement that Maka couldn’t hold back a giggle.

“Fine,” he said. “I don’t hate them. I just hate that I can’t tell when you’re joking.”

“But Maka,” he said, his face utterly unreadable. “I’m _always_ serious.”

Maka snorted, shoved Wyn against the wall, and took off running, Wyn’s hooting laughter chasing after him. They raced each other through the halls, not slowing until they reached the dusty, unused bedroom on the second floor they'd claimed as a base of operations. Wyn tried to claim he'd beat Maka there, which was silly because Maka had _clearly_ touched the door controls first.

"Did you get it, though?" Maka asked when he finally gave up on getting Wyn to admit his defeat.

Wyn grinned, pulling a slender blue rod from his pocket and waggling it in the air. "One power cell, as requested," he said pompously. "Swiped it right out from under Edi's nose while she was lecturing you."

Cheering, Maka turned and strode over to the desk that held the battered old receiver they'd found in storage last night. The sight of it had reminded Maka of the rebel broadcast Lance had heard once, back before Maka knew him, and Wyn's eyes had lit up as soon as Maka told him about it. The receiver had no power, but it looked otherwise intact.

Biting his lip to contain his anticipation, Maka turned the device toward Wyn. "Plug 'er in," he said. "Let's see if we can't get this thing to work."


	8. Chutes and Ladders (Shiro & Allura)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original prompt (from anon): "Hunk & Keith for the fluff ficlet requests? Or Shiro & Allura?"
> 
> And because I can't choose (especially between those options???) I'm doing both. Shiro & Allura first. Set just after chapter 7 of _Someplace Like Home_.

Shiro was on his way to the training deck for some agility drills when a wall panel suddenly vanished and Allura came flying out of the darkness beyond.

Shiro yelped in surprise, reaching out to catch Allura as her own eyes widened. They collided, hard, heads knocking together as they tumbled to the ground in a heap. Allura landed atop Shiro, but she was already rolling aside, regaining her feet before Shiro finished processing what had just happened.

“Shiro!” Allura cried, assuming a regal posture that lost some of its poise with her hair falling out of its bun. She wore her paladin armor, sans helmet, every inch streaked with dust and grime. “I didn’t expect to find you here.”

 _Find_ him? More like trample him. Groaning, Shiro sat up, rubbing the sore spot on his forehead where it had hit Allura’s. “I know I suggested getting in some practice with the mind meld, but this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

Laughing, Allura pulled Shiro to his feet. “My apologies,” she said. “Last time I did that, there was considerably less of me to bludgeon unsuspecting passers by.”

Shiro arched an eyebrow, glancing past Allura to the hole she’d appeared from. The wall panel had slid back into place after ejecting her, leaving no sign of anything at all out of the ordinary. “And… what _are_ you doing?”

She tucked her hands behind her back, rising up on her toes with the most patently false look of innocence Shiro had ever seen. “Safety sweep,” she said.

Shiro’s eyebrow crept higher. “ _Safety_ sweep. Huh. Sounds serious. Maybe I should give you a hand with that.”

To his surprise, Allura broke into a delighted grin. “That’s an excellent idea, Shiro! This way.”

After that, what choice did he have? Allura turned and strode away, looking every bit a princess and not at all like someone who’d just been launched from nowhere like a living cannon ball. Where _had_ she come from? Shiro followed a few steps behind her, trying to puzzle it out, but he turned up a blank.

Eventually, she stopped beside another nondescript section of wall and turned toward Shiro.

“Can you keep a secret?”

Shiro crossed his arms. “Of course I can. Assuming it’s not the sort of thing the rest of the team legitimately needs to know about.”

With a nod, Allura glanced both ways down the corridor, then slid her fingers into a seam in the wall. A moment later, the panel hissed and slid aside, revealing a dark hole very much like the one Allura had emerged from. Shiro could make out the beginning of a chute of some kind, but not much else.

He glanced at Allura. “That can’t possibly be safe.”

“Thus the safety sweep,” she said brightly, then grabbed onto the top of the opening—shoulder height on her—and swung herself into the darkness. She vanished in a blink, her shout of laughter echoing back up to Shiro.

He hesitated for a moment, wondering what had come over Allura. Then the pneumatics hissed in preparation to close the secret door, and he threw caution to the wind and leaped in after Allura.

The door sealed behind him, leaving him in almost total darkness as the chute fell away beneath him. He let out an undignified cry as he picked up speed, spreading his arms and legs instinctively to control his near-vertical descent. A few dimly glowing panels overhead marked his _entirely-too-fast_ progress. The chute turned sharply to the right, and suddenly Shiro was out in the open, tumbling to a stop beside a giggling Allura.

“Too much?” she asked, tucking a stray curl behind her ear.

Shiro blinked up at the ceiling, opting to stay flat on his back until the world around him stopped spinning. “What,” he asked, “was _that_?”

“There are all sorts of secret passages in the castle walls,” Allura said with a shrug. “Some are more fun than others.”

“Fun?” Shiro tried to look stern, but his heart was pounding, his limbs felt like jelly, and despite it all he found himself laughing. “God, it’s like a secret amusement park. Why do you _have_ things like that?”

Allura put a finger to her chin, frowning. “I think they were parcel delivery originally,” she said. “Like the trash and laundry chutes. Someone probably reprogrammed them at some point.”

Shiro sat up, frowning. “Reprogrammed?”

“Certainly. The Castle of Lions was built to adapt to the needs of her crew. Most of the rooms can be altered at the main infrastructure controls.”

She said it like it should have been obvious. Maybe it _was_ obvious. Everything else the Alteans had done was adaptable—their clothes, their armor, the Lions and the bayards. Why not their space ships?

“And, what?” he asked. “You were allowed to just play around in the walls unsupervised? You’re a princess.”

“Meri and I liked to explore when we were younger. I’m still not sure Coran actually knew where we always disappeared to, whatever he says.” She stood, brushing herself off. “In any case, now that we have children on the castle again, I thought it best to ensure they weren’t going to break a limb where no one knew to look for them.”

“You’re just going to _tell_ them?”

Allura snorted. “Of course not. But if they happen to stumble upon the passages...”

“Totally by accident, I’m sure,” Shiro put in dryly.

Allura beamed. “I still have a number of passages I need to… inspect. For safety purposes. Would you care to join me?”

Shiro shook his head in disbelief, but found himself smiling again. “Sure,” he said. “Sounds fun.”


	9. Honorary (Hunk & Keith)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part two of the anon request for Shiro & Allura and/or Hunk & Keith. Covers a decent stretch of season 2, but the main bit is set roughly during chapter 15 of _Someplace Like Home_.

Keith wasn’t honestly sure how he’d ended up as Hunk’s official-unofficial helper and tool-passer. Maybe it was that Matt, Pidge, and Coran were all far too likely to end up starting their own project instead of sitting quietly by and handing Hunk the tools he asked for.

All he knew was that one day in the middle of roaming the castle as part of his post-training cool-down, he’d overheard someone banging on a metal sheet in one of the empty rooms on the eighth floor. The sound was an assault on his senses, and he’d very nearly turned around and left. But then he heard Hunk’s voice, cursing softly.

Hunk wasn’t especially prone to cursing. Not like Pidge or Matt or Keith himself. Even Lance had his moments, though just as often he tossed out the most nonsensical swears Keith had ever heard (or misused Galran and Altean curses—deliberately, Keith was sure.) But Hunk usually took care to keep it clean.

Despite himself, Keith felt a stab of anxiety at the thought of what might have driven Hunk to profanity. Hand on the knife sheathed at his waist, Keith crept toward the workroom door. He expected to find Hunk fighting an intruder, or maybe a bit of ancient tech gone rogue.

Instead, he found only Hunk, hands coated in grease to the elbow, a pair of goggles pushed up on his forehead. He was struggling to hold up a large, awkwardly shaped section of metal casing with one hand while he tried to force a fastener into holes that just didn’t want to line up.

The casing slipped again and, cursing under his breath, Hunk turned toward the tools arrayed behind him. He caught sight of Keith in the doorway, jumped so high he slipped off his stool, and burst out laughing.

“Holy cheeseballs, Keith, don’t sneak up on me like that!”

Keith shrugged, wondering if he should leave. He and Hunk were friendly, but they weren’t quite friends. Not yet.

But Hunk just grabbed a clamp and waved Keith over. “Mind holding this dang thing steady for me?”

Amused at the return of the kid-friendly swears (especially notable after what Keith had just heard), Keith obliged, holding the casing where Hunk guided it. It took only a minute to secure the casing, after which Keith figured he’d be on his way.

But Hunk was good at sliding backhanded into a friendship, as it turned out. There was no Moment, no big gestures or awkward heart-to-hearts. Just a smile and a casual request for Keith to pass the soldering iron and three more hours of idle conversation before Keith realized he’d never finished his cool-down.

Before he knew it, it had become routine. Every morning, Keith got up early, trained for an hour or two, then headed up to breakfast. From there, he and Hunk headed down to Yellow’s hangar or Hunk’s workroom. Mostly it was Hunk who kept the conversation rolling.

Sometimes he talked about his projects, and Keith quickly learned that no question was too dumb; Hunk liked talking about his work, and he was good at explaining things in a way Keith could understand.

Sometimes he complained about the lack of a proper kitchen, leaping on Keith’s questions about what a _proper_ kitchen was with stories of his mother’s restaurant back on Earth.

Sometimes he asked Keith about his childhood, or his time in Zarkon’s army. This had unsettled Keith at first, but it soon became clear that Hunk’s questions hid no ulterior motive. He just wanted to know more about Keith, and gave him a brilliant smile whenever Keith turned the conversations back toward Hunk’s childhood on Earth.

Sometimes, they didn’t talk at all, whether because Hunk was still half-asleep, or because he was engrossed in his work, or because one of them had something else on their mind.

Today was one of the quiet days, Hunk buried to the hips inside the Yellow Lion, humming to himself as he worked. Keith lay on his back on Yellow’s paw, staring at the distant ceiling. Hunk’s lion had a totally different feel to her than Red. Yellow was quiet, in contrast to Red’s near-constant rumbling inside Keith’s head. Yellow was placid, unhurried, while Red always gave off the impression that you were moving too slow for her. With Red, Keith always wanted to fight, or at least to find a training ground in which to test his reflexes.

With Yellow, Keith just wanted to sleep.

He’d thought her boring at first (though Hunk had seemed offended when Keith voiced this opinion.) But over the weeks, Keith slowly revised his opinion. Yellow wasn’t boring, just steady. Not complacent, but content.

She was stability itself—and that was something Keith hadn’t had a lot of in his life.

Hunk stuck his hand out of the hatch he was buried in, wiggling his fingers to catch Keith’s attention. His humming increased in volume, and Keith fought down a smile, his ear flicking in amusement.

“You do know the castle-ship hasn’t figured out how to translate humming yet, right?” he asked dryly.

Hunk fell silent, then started laughing. “I was doing it again, wasn’t I?”

“You were,” Keith said, rolling over and dropping off the side of Yellow’s paw. He landed near Hunk’s tools and crouched down. “Was that Balmera-speak for wrench, or wire cutter?”

“Screwdriver, actually,” Hunk said sheepishly. Keith didn’t quite understand the way it worked, but he’d gathered that the Yellow Lion communicated the way a Balmera would, through song, or something like it. When Hunk was close to her, he had a tendency to fall so deep into their connection that he forgot what words were.

Thus the humming.

Keith grabbed the screwdriver and passed it into Hunk’s hand. “One of these days, I’m going to figure out this song language of yours.”

“I don’t know that I’m actually _saying_ anything,” Hunk admitted. “Balmera are telepaths. I don’t think their song can be translated into sound. Not directly.” Hunk paused. “And let’s be honest here. Even if it could, I would have the worst accent.”

Keith snorted.

“But—hey! I’ll bet if we bring the mind-meld set down here, you could use my brain as an interpreter and hear Yellow’s song.”

Keith sat up straight, surprised. “Are you sure your lion would want you to do that?”

Hunk slid out of the maintenance hatch to give Keith a lopsided smile. “Of course. She’s got a soft spot for you.”

“She… does?”

“Sure.”

Keith frowned. “ _Why?_ I’m not her paladin.”

“But we’re friends,” Hunk said. It felt like an incomplete explanation, but Keith found he couldn’t argue with it. Hunk went on as if he didn’t notice Keith’s inner conflict. “Yeah, she’s basically adopted Lance and Matt, and Pidge isn’t far behind, but you’ve spent more time with her than anyone besides me and Shay. If you mind meld with her, she might just try to make you an honorary yellow paladin.”

Keith ducked his head, feeling suddenly embarrassed. “Red might have a problem with that,” he grumbled.

Hunk laughed. “Guess we’ll have to do it while Red’s asleep, then.” He pulled Keith into a loose, one-armed hug, then pushed himself back inside Yellow. “I left some spare screws on my workbench,” he said, waving toward the wall. “Mind grabbing them for me?”

Keith stood, but he hesitated before walking away. He had been spending a lot of time down here lately, and he sometimes felt like he could almost hear Yellow's voice. He wondered suddenly whether she could hear him.

Feeling foolish, he lifted a hand and rested it against Yellow’s side, focusing on that odd calm he always felt when he was near her. _Thanks,_ he thought. _For keeping me around. It means a lot._

It might have just been his imagination, but Keith swore he heard Hunk’s humming grow warmer in response.


	10. Joyride (Tik & Bee)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original prompt (from Wooster): "Are you still taking prompts? If so, could I request Tik taking one of the shuttle pods for a spin without clearing it first with anyone?"

The shuttle was left unattended, which, really, was _asking_ for trouble. Tik couldn’t be blamed for answering, now could he?

“You’re _sure_ Coran said this was okay?” Bee asked, dancing on her toes in the doorway of the shuttle hangar.

Tik blew out his cheeks. “He didn’t say it _wasn’t_.” (Again: not Tik’s fault at all.) Bee frowned, and Tik groaned at the ceiling. “Come _on_ , Bee! I though you wanted to fly one of these things.”

“I do...” She shot a look at the nearest shuttle, eyes shining. Her fingers picked at her sleeves, and Tik smiled to himself. He _knew_ Bee wouldn’t be able to say no to this. Anyone else, probably. But stick Bee in a room with a big ol’ machine that had at least a ten percent chance of blowing up? Sold.

Though… when he thought about it that way, it didn’t sound so much like something he should want to do. Not with Bee, at any rate. Tik swore she had a magical talent for making things explode, which was cool, but the sort of cool that got less cool the closer you got.

But he _was_ going. He hadn’t left the castle in _ages_. Which was, y’know, fine. He _liked_ the castle. It was big and warm and at _least_ forty percent magical. But you couldn’t spend forever looking out the viewscreen at the stars and _not_ want to see them up close. Risk of exploding or no.

He’d distracted himself for a while with the vents, following around Pip, the littlest of the paladins, as they showed off all the best hidey holes. There were all sorts of slides and hidden rooms and secret doors in the castle, and Tik figured he’d found them all by now.

And he was _bored._

He’d found out about the hangar being unlocked a few days ago while exploring the castle. Quite a few of the secret passages he’d found (the ones that didn’t connect to the ventilation system) had entrances in the hallways, but most connected one room to another, like miniature little wormholes to take you from the pool to the kitchen to the room with all the stars on the walls. (Edi said the star room was for the navigators, but that was only because she’d never been there herself. She didn’t know it was a place to give new pilots the courage to bend a few rules and get out there with all the _real_ stars.)

The main problem, Tik had realized, was that he had no clue how to fly a ship. He’d flunked out of training before they got to the spaceship unit, and Revinor hadn’t exactly been big on flight sims.

There were plenty of people who knew about ships, but most of them were too old for Tik to hope they’d let him go out flying. All the adults thought it was too dangerous, like Zarkon might swoop down on them at any moment just to steal away bad little squirts who flew ships without permission.

Bee was the one who had told Tik that one—she was like an archive full of gossip and weird, fake stories—but she didn’t seem to believe it would actually happen any more than Tik did.

And she _did_ want to fly the ship.

“C’mon,” Tik said, scurrying forward. “We’ll only go out for a little bit. I just wanna see what its like.”

Bee followed, running her claws reverently over the lines of the shuttle. It was an awkward little pod, lumpier than a bowl of food goo with a head like a glass bulb, but as long as it flew Tik didn’t care. “Just this once, right…?” Bee asked.

Tik took the yoke in his hands, twisting it back and forth like he was fangs-deep in an epic space battle. “Just this once,” he agreed, then turned and grinned at her. “Think of it like a try-out. If you’re a good enough pilot, I might hire you once I buy my own ship.”

“ _You_?” she asked, hands on her hips. “How are _you_ ever gonna buy a ship?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe I’ll be a pirate first. Then once I have the money I’ll buy a ship.”

With a snort that sounded too much like Edi for Tik’s taste, Bee climbed up into the cockpit and poked Tik until he gave up the pilot’s seat. “Pirates need ships, too, fuzz-brain.”

Tik stuck out his tongue. “Then maybe I’ll ask Rolo and Nyma to make me their junior pirate and get money that way.”

“Whatever you say, Tik.” Bee put her hands on the yoke, eyes wide as she stared around the pod. She reached out for a button, then pulled back at the last second. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Sure you can.” Tik glanced at the controls, frowning, then figured the big blue button was probably something important. He pushed it, and the engine purred to life. Bee squeaked, grabbing the yoke like she thought the ship might start flying itself if she didn’t hold it still. “See? Easy!”

Bee glared at him, but the ship was itching to move now, so Bee eased it out of the bay, through the open doors, and into the big black nothing of space. Tik, seated in the copilot seat, cheered, leaning forward and tilting his head back to look at the stars around them. Bee turned the shuttle, and Tik caught sight of the castle, massively big but growing smaller as they flew.

“Bee!” he cried. “You’re doing it!”

Her hands were shaking, but she beamed at him—at least until the comms turned on and the princess’s angry frown appeared. Bee squeaked, instantly letting go of the controls. The shuttle started to drift, and Allura’s anger turned to shock.

“It’s the children,” she said, and another picture appeared next to hers—Shiro, the other black paladin. He blinked a few times, then frowned.

“Tik. Bee. What are you doing out here?”

Bee ducked her head, too embarrassed to say anything, and even Tik started to fidget. “We wanted to see the stars,” he said, gesturing lamely to the viewscreen. “We haven’t left the castle in _ages._ ”

Shiro opened his mouth, then hesitated. “Well.” He pursed his lips. “You can’t leave all on your own. It’s not safe.”

“But--”

“Next time you want to do something like this,” Shiro said, “ask one of us. I’m sure Lance would be happy to take you out in his lion.”

Tik sat up straight, eyes widening. “Really?”

“Short flights,” Allura said. “And only once we’ve confirmed there are no Imperial ships nearby.”

Shiro nodded. “Exactly. Now let’s get you two back to the castle, hmm?”

Tik was too excited about flying in one of the lions to complain.

He’d have to bug Pip to take him out in Green sometime. It would be _way_ better than this dinky little shuttle.


	11. Ears (Keith/Lance)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original prompt (from anon): Oh my goodness the last 2 duality chapters nearly killed me (in a good way). Can I pretty please have Lance/team learning to read Keith's mood through his ears and barely resisting the urge (or not) to pet them? If it fits of course, I love the klance pacing you've got going (which is also killing me in a good way) 
> 
> Set somewhere in the middle of SLH (chapters 14-15-ish).

“Okay, Shiro, be honest with me: are you psychic?”

Lance had his hands steepled in front of his mouth, his eyes serious as he stared at Shiro. So serious, in fact, that Shiro had to wonder if he’d somehow misheard the question.

“Psychic?”

“Yes.”

Shiro frowned. “Is this just idle curiosity, or am I missing something?”

Lance’s intense gaze faltered, and tapped his fingertips together. His gaze slid toward the door. Shiro usually arrived early to breakfast with Matt, but the others would be here soon. Shiro was honestly surprised Lance was here before anyone else.

Matt leaned his cheek on his hand. “Is this about Keith?”

“What?” Lance gaped at him, his voice pitching toward the rafters. “Keith? Pfft. No way. What? Why would this have anything to do with that purple loser?”

Humming, Matt stirred some of the fresh fruit from Ryner’s garden into Hunk’s newest oatmeal variant. “I don’t know… Maybe it’s the way you keep staring at him when you think he’s not looking.” Matt paused, lifting his spoon to his mouth and smirking at Lance. “He noticed.”

Lance froze, then sank down into the seat across from Shiro with a groan.

Shiro shot Matt a frown, transforming Matt’s grin into a cough. Sighing, Shiro refocused on Lance. “Okay, what’s going on? Why do you keep staring at Keith, and what does that have to do with me being psychic?”

“Ah-hah!” Lance jabbed a finger in Shiro’s direction. “You admit it!”

“ _Lance_...”

“Ugh, fine. It’s dumb anyway.” Lance crossed his arms on the table and rested his chin atop them. “The only reason I keep looking at him is that I’m trying to figure out how his brain works.”

“The _only_ reason,” Matt muttered. “Right.”

Shiro pinched his arm under the table, a gesture that lost some of its tact when Matt yelped and jumped so high he hit his knee on the underside of the table, rattling the dishes.

Lance looked from one to the other, a blush crawling up his neck. “It’s not like that. I just--” He groaned again, this time sounding like a dying cow. “I keep pissing him off somehow, and not just when I’m trying to. I mean, one second we’re all fine and dandy, just two buds joking around and then— _bam!_ He’s jumping down my throat.”

Matt raised an eyebrow. “He’s not that bad.”

“ _You_ share a brain with him,” Lance said, narrowing his eyes. “Of course you’d know what goes on in there.” Those sharp eyes turned back to Shiro. “Which is why I figure you must be psychic. It’s the only way you can possibly predict his mood swings.”

Shiro chuckled. “ _Or_ maybe we just spent three months sabotaging Zarkon’s army from the inside. Things like that tend to help you get to know a person.”

“So I should just take Keith and go spy on someone,” Lance said cheekily. He saluted. “Got it. You’ve been a great help.”

Shiro rolled his eyes as Lance stood up, making as if to leave. It was true things had been rocky between Keith and Lance in the past. They still were occasionally. Lance was a loud personality, used to knowing instinctively when he was toeing a line. Keith had never met anyone quite like Lance, and had trouble communicating to boot. Maybe if they got on the same page for once their turbulent sometimes-friendship-sometimes-rivalry would smooth itself out.

“It’s his ears.”

Lance stopped at the door, glancing back over his shoulder. “His… ears?” He frowned, but it was a thoughtful frown rather than a skeptical one.

Shiro shrugged. “Galra ears are expressive. When they go back, he’s either angry or scared; if he flicks one, he’s telling you to leave him alone… Stuff like that.”

“And if they shiver, he’s laughing at you,” Matt put in. “Which is friggin’ annoying, by the by.” Shiro frowned at him, as did Lance, and Matt hunched his shoulders. “What? _You_ try having someone else’s brain try to wiggle your ears. It’s like having the worlds worst itch and not being able to reach it.”

Shiro’s lips twitched, and Matt punched his arm before he could laugh outright.

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Shiro said. He pointedly ignored Matt’s scowl and smiled at Lance. Shiro had spent a year with the Galra, which meant he’d picked up quite a bit of their body language—not just ears, though Keith’s ears were particularly expressive. He was ready to give Lance a few more pointers, but of course it was then that Keith himself walked in from the kitchen, a bowl of plain food goo in his hands.

Lance’s eyes went wide, and he shot Shiro a panicked look. Shiro willed him to breathe.

“Morning, Keith,” Matt said. “Lance was just telling us about the swap moon Coran took him to the other day.”

Keith glanced at Lance as he sat, ears swiveling in curiosity.

Lance glared hard at Matt, who stared blandly back, then launched into a story about some Unilu who’d reported Coran to mall security for “being shifty.”

Shiro leaned over to Matt to whisper in his ear. “You enjoy teasing them, don’t you?”

“Shiro, you wound me,” Matt said, doing his best to look innocent. He didn’t manage it half as well as Pidge.

“I can see your ears twitching from here, Matt.”

Matt’s hands started to reach for his head. Then he froze, flushed, and stomped down on Shiro’s toes. “You’re one to talk,” he grumbled as Shiro laughed. “I’ve seen that constipated face you make when you try to shape-shift.”

Shiro stopped laughing. “I don’t--”

Matt raised and eyebrow, and Shiro’s protest fell flat.

“Oh, shut up,” Shiro said.

“What’s your problem with my ears, Lance?” Keith snapped, and Shiro cringed.

 _Oh, no._ Shiro turned. He couldn’t fathom how the conversation had turned so quickly from Coran’s ongoing feud with mall cops across the universe to the one topic that was better off staying as subtext.

“It’s been _thirty seconds_ ,” Shiro moaned, quietly enough that only Matt heard.

“You underestimate him.”

“Apparently.”

“I don’t have a _problem_ with them,” Lance said, holding up his hands. “I’m just confused how the species that’s conquered half the universe can be literal cat people!”

Shiro buried his face in his hands as Keith’s ear flicked once, violently.

“I’m not a cat,” he growled. Shiro wondered whether he should intervene, but Matt just patted his shoulder.

“Why are you assuming that was an insult?” Lance protested. “You don’t even know what cats are!”

“Actually, I _do_.”

“ _How?!_ ”

“We were talking about pets,” Matt said, shrugging. “It was late.”

Lance narrowed his eyes. “You’re a _dog_ person, aren’t you?”

Matt smiled.

Lance turned up his nose at him. “Don’t listen to Matt on this, Keith. Cats are great, and you’re a cat… _and I can prove it._ ”

He said it so dramatically Shiro could feel the impending disaster in his bones. Keith’s ears had gone halfway back—a warning, if Lance bothered to recognize it.

He didn’t, of course.

“Come here,” Lance said, draping himself across the table, arms outstretched. “Let me scratch your ears.”

Keith leaned back. “What? No!”

“Come _on_. _Keeeeith._ ” Lance was fully horizontal by now, making grabby hands in Keith’s direction. Keith’s lip curled back, his eyes narrowing, his ears pressing flat against his skull.

Lance froze.

“ _Lance,_ ” Pidge groaned from the door. “What did you do _now_?”

“Nothing!” Lance protested. But his eyes, when he looked at Keith, were guilty.

Pidge snorted, shuffling toward the kitchen and muttering to themself. “It’s too early for this.”

Keith stood, grabbing his bowl, and headed for the door. Lance drooped as he went, letting his hands fall. He didn’t see when Keith stopped in the doorway and glanced back at Lance. His ears lifted, quivering ever-so-slightly in what Shiro could only call fondness.

Keith caught Shiro looking and went rigid, ear twitching as Keith struggled not to let his emotions show. The overall impression was something very much like a blush—and from Matt’s silent laughter, he’d noticed it, too.

Shiro smiled, patting Lance’s ankle as Keith fled the room. “Don’t worry about it too much, Lance,” he said. “You’ll get there.”


	12. Trust (Shiro & Keith)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original prompt (from Wooster): "Could I request a scene from just after Shiro joined forces with Keith, but before Keith had truly earned Shiro's trust (as opposed to the lesser of two evils). I'd like to see what might've taken place for Shiro to decide that maybe this was the real deal."
> 
> (This one is considerably less fluffy than the rest because of the context, but it was just too good a prompt to pass up.)
> 
> Set three months before the start of Duality and immediately after Keith frees Shiro.

Shiro sat on his new bed, wondering when the universe had turned upside down.

It was a real bed, with a mattress (thin though it may be). With _sheets_. The room was small, but it had a door that closed and a light he could turn off when he slept. He had clothes in the closet, a private bathroom, running water. Amazing how such simple things could feel like a luxury.

It couldn’t last.

He kept waiting for the guards to burst in and drag him back down to the Arena. For Haggar to appear and hack off another limb to replace it with her weapons. For the young Galra officer who had freed him to prove as much a monster as anyone else out here in the depths of space.

There was a knock at the door, and Shiro froze, slow to remember that strangers hadn’t always just barged in on him unannounced. _Why_ anyone here would knock baffled him, but by then he was on his feet and heading for the door. Nothing good could come of ignoring the Galra.

When the door slid open, Shiro found himself staring at Keith, the Galra who had stolen him away from Haggar—Shiro’s commanding officer, now. Keith seemed wary, his ears halfway back like a feral cat who couldn’t decide whether or not to bolt. He held a tray loaded down with food, a second tray floating near his shoulder. Shiro froze again at the sight of them.

It was more food than he’d seen at once since his capture. Real food, too, not just the colorless mush the prisoners were given. A lot of this was mush, too, but it was more brightly colored, and there were chunks of what looked like meat and vegetables mixed in.

And the _smells._

Shiro stepped back to let Keith enter the room, careful to keep his face neutral so Keith wouldn’t see how hungry he was. His stomach had awakened at the spices in Keith’s food, and he didn’t want to consider what he would surrender if Keith tried to bargain for this meal.

Keith ignored him for the moment, though, just shut the door behind him and tapped a panel on the wall. The desk beside the bunks retracted into the wall, and a small table with two chairs rose from the floor. Keith set both trays down, claimed one of the chairs, and gestured for Shiro to take the other.

Shiro did so, frowning, and stared at the flimsy spork Keith held out to him.

“I didn’t know what you like,” Keith said once Shiro had taken the utensil. Then he dug into one of the dishes in front of him. He paused with the food halfway to his mouth, frowning at Shiro, who still hadn’t moved. “What?”

“You… brought me food.” Shiro didn’t know what else to say. There had to be a catch.

Keith’s ear twitched once, a mesmerizing motion. “Well I didn’t think you’d want to eat in the commissary with half the ship watching,” he grumbled.

Shiro blinked. He was _serious_? Despite the situation, despite the weapon grafted onto his arm, Keith seemed not to think of him either as a tool to be used or a threat to be controlled. He didn’t threaten or bribe. Instead, he brought Shiro food. He knocked before entering.

Shiro still didn’t trust it. He _wouldn’t_ trust it. Not as long as there was a shadow of a chance that this was a trick. He had very little power in this arrangement, and he wasn’t going to give it up at the first glimpse of kindness.

But Keith made it very hard to stay suspicious. After the meal, he produced a jar of ointment he said helped with bruises and small cuts. He registered Shiro’s cybernetic hand with the door controls and showed Shiro how to lock the bathroom door while he showered.

And he did it all so casually, as if these were things he might do for any prisoner in his custody. Or as if he didn’t consider Shiro a prisoner at all.

Standing in the bathroom, the air around him hazy with steam, Shiro stared at his reflection. He didn’t know when he’d changed so much—his face was harder than he remembered, his shoulders broader. He had dark shadows under his eyes and white in his hair and a scar across his nose—a scar Keith himself had given him.

 _This is your life now,_ he thought, feeling suddenly, achingly, old. _Scars and fears that you can never get away from._

At least he’d spared Matt this nightmare. At least there was that.

* * *

He didn’t come to trust Keith immediately, however much Keith tried to make him feel comfortable. He slept poorly for the first week, fear combining with the sounds of his new quarters—sounds of the Galra sleeping an arm’s length away—to keep him on edge.

Fortunately, Keith didn’t ask him to leave the room often. They ate here, and Keith went alone to the frequent meetings Shiro assumed were meant to ensure that Shiro hadn’t gone rogue and slaughtered anyone in their sleep.

The only times Shiro left in that first, endless week were the hour or so spent on the training deck each day. This was a trial in its own right, but a familiar one. Shiro could handle fighting, and the jeers he received from the other Galra were as much white noise.

(The jeers never stopped entirely, but they did taper off after the first time Keith broke a soldier’s nose for calling Shiro a pathetic waste of Quintessence.)

By the second week, Shiro ventured out of their quarters more often—always with Keith—and the other Galra he met consumed most of his paranoid energy. He still didn’t trust Keith, but he rarely remembered to watch for a betrayal.

In the fifth week, Shiro stepped out of the shower to find Keith lying on his bunk, watching a video of some sort that he’d projected onto the underside of Shiro’s bunk above him.

“You didn’t tell me you had Netflix,” Shiro said. Without thinking, he sat on the edge of Keith’s bunk, close enough that his hand brushed against Keith’s foot. Keith went still, his eyes wide as he stared at Shiro the way he might stare at a grizzly who’d decided to steal a potato chip off his plate. It was only then that Shiro realized: this was the first time he’d touched Keith without flinching. They hadn’t even been able to spar against each other without running the risk of Shiro freezing up, which was why Shiro mostly stuck to fighting sentry bots.

“What’s Netflix?” Keith finally asked, sounding strangled.

Shiro breathed in, then made himself relax. “Something that lets humans watch movies and TV shows—entertainment,” he added, gesturing at the video playing overhead. He couldn’t see the picture from this angle, but the voices (which didn’t quite manage to sound authentic) seemed to be arguing about a broken communicator.

It was staggeringly mundane. Shiro would have expected Galra entertainment to be far more violent than this.

Shiro watched the distorted image for a few moments, his head ducked to get a better angle. All the while, he felt Keith’s eyes on him. Then Keith scooted toward the wall, opening up more space on the bed. It wasn’t a wide bunk, but there was room for the two of them to share, if Shiro didn’t mind some close quarters.

He hesitated only a moment before accepting Keith’s tacit offer, stretching out beside him and looking up at the video playing above him. Keith immediately launched into an explanation of what sounded more and more like a sitcom the longer he talked, though Shiro only half heard him. Even just a month earlier, he wouldn’t have thought it possible, but somewhere along the line Keith had won his trust—and that made everything just a little bit more bearable.


	13. Us (Keith/Lance)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original prompt (from anon): "how about some cute keith/lance for a ficlet?"
> 
> Set sometime in the indeterminate future after Keith and Lance have been dating for a few weeks/months.

“I don’t believe you,” Keith said flatly, crossing his arms as Lance spluttered a protest.

“What? But Keith— _Keith,_ babe. C’mon.”

Keith arched an eyebrow. “Don’t give me that look.”

“ _Keeeeeith._ ” Lance danced around in front of Keith, latching onto his shoulders and going limp. Keith cursed, but caught Lance before he hit the floor (if only to keep from being dragged down with him.) He studiously ignored the way Lance pouted up at him. “Would I lie to you?”

“All the time,” Keith said, continuing on his way down the corridor. Lance tried to be stubborn at first, but when he realized Keith wasn’t going to hold him up forever, he grudgingly took back his own weight and slunk along beside Keith, who smirked to himself.

Lance opened his mouth, clearly about to protest his honesty, but Keith was faster.

“You told me you could hold your breath for ten minutes.”

“A… _slight_ exaggeration,” Lance said, crossing his arms.

Keith raised an eyebrow. “You tried to convince me it was Pidge who switched my soap for food goo.”

“Denial is an integral part of the pranking process.”

“You also told me you hated me. On numerous occasions.” Keith paused, his ears quivering in amusement as he glanced at Lance. “Or was that the truth, too?”

Lance stuck his tongue out. “Okay, so I _might_ have a _slight_ tendency to bend the truth. Sometimes.” He swerved, jostling Keith with his elbow as they walked. “What matters is I’m telling the truth right now.”

“You hit a six-inch target at a thousand yards.”

“Yes!”

Keith narrowed his eyes. Most of the paladins’ target practice put the targets a couple hundred yards out, but he knew Lance had been trying to extend his range. Keith hadn’t thought he’d extended it it quite _this_ far. “And I’ll bet you no-scoped it, too.”

Lance reached up and flicked Keith’s ear. “Don’t be ridiculous, Mullet. Of course I used a scope. This is skill, not luck.”

Keith eyed him, leaning away as Lance made another move for Keith’s ears. He seemed… serious? Huh. “You’ll have to show me later.”

Lance grinned like he knew Keith’s skepticism was, at this point, just an act. “Anytime you wanna eat your words, you just give me a call, Keith.”

With a scoff to show he wasn’t convinced just yet, Keith gave Lance’s shoulder a push, then quickened the pace. He couldn’t help being glad Lance hadn’t turned this into a wager, or Keith would be losing more than a little pride.

A sudden shriek startled Keith. He reached instinctively for the knife at his waist—the product of far too long living on the edge of battle—but it wasn’t another of Haggar’s creatures pelting toward them down the corridor. The lavender blur took Lance around the middle, the force behind her charge knocking him back several steps.

“ _Lance!_ ” Azra shrieked. “Lancelanclancelancelance!”

Lance wheezed a laugh, turning his stumble into something closer to a dance. The six-year-old was the youngest of the Galra refugees, and one of the loudest, but it was hard not to smile when she was around.

Lance didn’t just smile. He lit up as he spun Azra around, and when she laughed he seemed to swell. Keith wondered if that came from being a big brother. Luz was only a little older than Azra, after all.

“What is it, princess?” Lance asked, lifting Azra up and setting her on his feet so he could walk her forward.

Azra squirmed, but she didn’t look like she was planning on getting down any time soon. “Uncle Tev’s gonna show me how to run the castle.”

Keith arched an eyebrow, wondering if Tev had cleared this with anyone. He was known for his lack of self-control where the younger Galra were concerned, and this wouldn’t be the first time a pair of big yellow eyes had won a hasty promise from him. And a six-year-old controlling a floating fortress sounded like a _bad_ idea.

Lance apparently didn’t see the problem. He just beamed, spun Azra around, and declared that the occasion demanded a special braid. Azra squealed and took off running for her room, where she kept a small but growing collection of combs, ribbons, baubles, and barrettes. Lance was dragged along for the ride, throwing his head back and laughing as Azra began to describe her newest accessories. Keith didn’t bother to hide his smile.

“Wow. You really _have_ gone soft.”

Keith jumped at the voice in his ear, reaching again for his dagger as he spun. Zuza, Azra’s sister, watched the gesture, a smirk playing across her lips.

“Don’t,” he warned.

“Don’t what?” she asked, entirely too innocent.

Keith narrowed his eyes. “You know what.”

She smiled, turning around to face him, her hands tucked behind her back. “Don’t say how cute you are when you’re looking at him?”

Keith scowled, taking a half-hearted swipe at Zuza.

She danced back, smile growing. “Don’t tell you how disgustingly sweet you two are? Like a platter full of candied--” She cut off with a yelp as Keith dove at her, then backed down the hallway, her eyes flashing mischievously. “Don’t ask if you’re just gonna straight-up combust when you two adopt a runt of your own?”

“Zuza,” Keith warned, his ears laying flat so they wouldn’t show his embarrassment. ( _Adopt a--?_ No way.) He lunged again for Zuza, who finally broke and ran for the elevator. Her legs were longer, but Keith was the more athletic of the pair, and he caught her just as the elevator doors slid shut.

She laughed, holding him at arm’s length until they reached the bottom and she could take off again. Keith chased her all the way to the door of Azra’s bedroom, where he stopped, suddenly forgetting his anger.

Azra sat cross-legged on the bed, fighting not to fidget as Lance braided her fine hair, which was considerably longer now than it had been when Lance started this tradition. He sat behind her, rambling on about teaching his sister to ride a bike. He was loose, pausing every now and again to make a broad, emphatic gesture, and when he spotted Keith in the door his eyes sparkled like some of the brightest starts Keith had ever seen.

Watching Lance come alive as he tied off Azra’s braid and let her whisk him off with a retelling of her latest adventures with Tik, Keith thought Zuza might have been onto something with all that teasing of hers.

She elbowed him, grinning, and Keith couldn’t even summon the anger to grouch at her. Instead, he just took a seat behind Lance on the bed, and when Lance turned that brilliant smile his way, Keith stole a kiss, quick and light.

Lance blinked, his smile going crooked. “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

Keith just smiled and said, “Us.”


	14. "Politics" (Allura & Meri)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original prompt (from anon): "Fluff request: Allura and Meri? :>"
> 
> Set approximately five years before the fall of Altea.

Allura crouched low, listening to the hum of voices around the corner. There were a few workers talking in low tones about the repairs on the second foboregulator, some civilians gossiping about the paladins’ last mission, and what sounded like a holo-call that really should have been kept private.

Behind Allura, Meri crept forward, poking Allura in the ribs. “What’s the holdup?”

Allura fought the urge to shriek at Meri’s touch—she _knew_ Allura was ticklish there, curse her—and swatted at the offending hand. “There are people.”

Meri sat back, pursing her lips. “So?”

“ _So_ , I’m supposed to be sitting in on Father’s meeting with Minister Telklan right now.”

“Allura,” Meri said, looking quite serious. “You’re the quiznaking _princess_. No one’s going to tell you you shouldn’t be here.”

Allura fought down a smile. “And you’ve been spending too much time with my mother. How _do_ you get along with a tongue like that?”

“Quite well, actually,” Meri said, her smile turning suggestive, and she burst out laughing as Allura blushed. “Seriously?” She sat back on her heels. “I blame it all on the Queen.”

Allura shoved Meri over, trying not to laugh. “You’re incorrigible.”

Meri just shrugged an agreement. She’d moved to the castle two years ago when she came of age and was permitted to begin training with the other paladin hopefuls. Allura’s mother, Queen Lealle, had taken a special interest in Meri and invited her to more intensive training a few months ago, which was how she’d become friends with Allura—and a terrible influence on her. Allura couldn’t believe she’d let herself be talked into this. _Again._

The voices around the corner moved on, and Meri darted past Allura and out into the open. She had a remarkable ability to blend in; if Allura hadn’t just seen the skulking, mischievous Meri, she wouldn’t have believed there was anything less than commendable about the young woman in the military uniform who strode down the corridor with her hands behind her back. She nodded to the civilians she passed, smiling politely.

Allura had decades of etiquette training that had taught her how to show only that which she wanted others to see, and she couldn’t match Meri’s facade of innocence.

It only got worse when they neared the maintenance dock (and Meri _still_ hadn’t explained why she wanted to take Allura there—and with such a sense of urgency!) They rounded a corner to find Coran up ahead, talking with a group of mechanics—right outside the door Meri and Allura wanted.

Allura’s first instinct was to run and hide, royal decorum be spaced. As if sensing the direction Allura’s thoughts had turned, Meri grabbed her by the wrist.

“Think of this as politics training,” Meri whispered, her eyes bright with silent laughter. Her violet glaes seemed to glow against her warm brown skin, her red hair snapping at her chin as she turned her face forward once more.

Allura scowled. “Politics? What kind of political lesson is this supposed to be? How to shirk your duties and ruin your public image?”

“No.” Meri wrinkled her nose. “More like how to lie through your teeth. Observe:” She picked up the pace, lifting a hand in greeting as the workers dispersed. “Coran!”

Coran turned, obviously surprised to see them here. Unlike the majority of people down on these floors, Coran knew about Alfor’s meeting and the fact that Allura should have been there. His gaze drilled into her, and she very nearly spilled the whole truth then and there.

Meri saved her before that happened. “Looking busy down here. Something going on?”

“Minor Xacanthum crystal growth near the Farsal Array. We’re just about to send out a cleaning crew.” He paused, glancing at Allura. “Meeting go well?”

Allura froze for half a second, then caught Meri’s pointed frown. Lie through her teeth, was it? She supposed there might be times she would need to be able to lie—to stall an enemy while the paladins moved into position, for instance. She _should_ be proficient at it before it became a necessity.

“Very well indeed,” she said, clasping her hands at her waist. “It didn’t take nearly as long as Father expected it to. He suggested I do some inspections as long as I have some time before the paladins begin their exercises for the day. Practice my authority, you know. Get the staff used to seeing me in command.”

Coran nodded thoughtfully, then flashed a smile. “Not bad, Princess. Though it would have been more convincing if you hadn’t started rambling at the end.”

Meri nodded. “Short answers are usually better,” she said sagely.

Allura’s face heated up, but Coran just gave her a shallow bow and waved her through. “I never saw you,” he whispered as she and Meri passed.

Meri was grinning as she towed Allura toward the excursion suits—lightweight, flexible space suits meant for workers who had to do minor external repairs mid-flight. “I like him,” Meri said. “Have I mentioned I like him? He’s so laid back; reminds me of my dad.”

“Believe me, Meri, he’s just as fond of you.” Allura glanced over her shoulder, still faintly embarrassed. “I’ll bet you ten crowns he only let us go because he wants to see what trouble you’re brewing.”

Meri snorted. “And he doesn’t have a soft spot for _you_ at all.”

Allura scowled, but she wasn’t a good enough liar to deny it. He was her third, after all: closer than family and twice as doting.

They were suited up and headed out the airlock well ahead of the cleaners, which made Meri breathe a sigh of relief. “Good,” she said, her voice sounding hollow over the comms. “I was afraid we weren’t going to make it in time.”

“In time for what?”

Meri turned, her helmet partially obscuring her broad grin. “The Xacanthum crystals. I overheard some workers talking about it. I was afraid they’d clear them away before I could show you.”

“Xacanthum crystals?”

With a wink, Meri pushed herself past the last ridge in the castle-ship’s hull. Allura followed—and gasped.

A blanket of crystals spread out before her, glittering like stars. They caught the light coming off the engines and reflected it in all directions, a thousand shades of blue that made the scene look like a frozen sea.

“It’s beautiful,” Allura whispered.

Meri hovered beside her for a moment, then turned her head toward the hull, pulling out a small hammer and chipping off a little fragment of crystals. She caught it a small, clear bag and held it out to Allura.

“They’re going to blast the rest of this off the hull, but that’s no reason you can’t keep a memento.”

Allura held up the bag, watching the light swirl inside the crystal like a storm. She caught Meri’s eyes over the top of her hand and smiled. “If this is what happens when I lie, I may just have to keep up with these lessons of yours. Purely for political reasons, of course.”

“Of course.” Meri’s eyes, when she smiled, glittered more than the entire sea of Xacanthum crystals beneath her.


	15. The Pigeon and the Lion (Holt family)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original prompt (from Pechat): "Pidge and Matt getting Sam hugs as kids"
> 
> Set six years before the start of season one.

“ _Dad!_ ”

Matt’s voice, shrill and angry, rang through the house, and Sam Holt looked up from the journal article he’d been reading on his computer (a survey of the newest evidence for complex life elsewhere in the Mliky Way.) Karen sat in the arm chair across from him, flipping through case notes, and held up a hand, counting down from three on her fingers.

Just as the last finger dropped, Katie’s voice rang out, higher and more insistent than Matt’s.

“It wasn’t my fault!”

Sam smothered a laugh as Karen flipped her hand as though to say, _I called that one._ “The real question,” he said under his breath as two pairs of footsteps came thundering down the stairs, “is whether Katie decided to _fix_ one of his machines without asking, or whether another shirt became a casualty of science.”

Karen frowned at him, but she couldn’t quite smother the amusement in her eyes. “This is all your fault, you know.”

“ _My_ fault?”

“You encourage them,” she said primly, then hid a smile behind her document as Matt and Pidge came tumbling into the room. Matt was seventeen—still too thin and gangly to fill out his Garrison uniform, his glasses sitting crooked on his nose. Pidge, at eight, was skinnier, wilder-haired, and puffed up with all the indignant rage a future mad scientist could muster.

Sam shut his laptop and set it aside, turning to give his children his full attention. “What’s this, now?” he asked, trying to look at least somewhat like he was taking the situation seriously. Never mind they all knew if it was a real fight in need of real mediation, Matt and Katie would have gone to their mother.

They never involved her when it was harmless bickering.

Matt still managed to look incredibly put-out as he shoved a mess of twisted wires and blackened circuit boards toward Sam. “My deep space comms relay,” he said, glaring at Katie. “Look at it!”

Katie hunched down, arms crossed, and kicked a pillow that had fallen off the couch. “It wouldn’t have caught on fire if you’d wired it right in the first place.”

“I wasn’t _done_ yet!”

Across the room, Karen quietly covered her face with her hands, but her shoulders were shaking with laughter Sam very much wanted to echo. He kept his face blank, though, staring hard at the ruined—goodness, _was_ that supposed to be a comms relay? Matt was insistent that he was going to follow in Sam’s footsteps and become the comms officer on his squad, but computers had never been his thing. Not the way they were Sam’s—and Katie’s.

_I keep telling you to go for engineering, Matt._

Frowning, Sam looked up at Katie. “Do I want to know what you were doing when this thing caught on fire?”

Head downcast, Katie shrugged. “I just wanted to see how it worked...”

Matt rolled his eyes. “And add on like five extra mods that overloaded the circuit.”

“Hmm.” Sam’s eyes flickered to Karen, who was red-faced now. She’d always said she had to have a sense of humor if she was going to survive a family of amateur inventors—and a sense of humor she had. Sometimes too much of one. She stood abruptly, setting aside her work, and disappeared into the kitchen, muttering something about getting started on dinner. She didn’t move quite fast enough to keep Sam from hearing her chuckle.

Sam turned back to the kids.

“Katie,” he said. “You know you’re not supposed to tinker with your brother’s homework projects.”

“Or _any_ of my projects,” Matt muttered. Katie blew a raspberry at him.

Sam pursed his lips, then set the ruined circuit aside. “Matt, I’ll help you redo the assignment after dinner.”

Matt’s posture relaxed so subtly Sam was sure Katie wouldn’t notice. Competition at the Garrison was brutal, and Sam knew Matt had been more stressed than usual since he’d enrolled. A missed assignment could hurt his grades, which could impact his entire squad’s standings among their peers.

Surprisingly, though, Katie looked guilty, toes scuffing across the carpet, eyes darting toward Matt as he took off his glasses to rub his nose. “I’m sorry, Matt.”

“It’s fine,” he said wearily, barely resisting when Sam tugged on his sleeve. He dropped down on the couch beside Sam, leaning against his shoulder, and Katie crawled up on Sam’s other side, looking at him with big eyes.

“If Mom’s making dinner… does that mean we can have story time?”

Sam smiled, grabbing the blanket off the back of the couch and draping over Katie, who curled against his side, buzzing with eagerness. Matt gave the obligatory _I’m-too-old-for-this_ groan, even as he hooked another blanket on the floor with his toes and made his own nest.

Story time was an old tradition in the Holt household, going back to Matt’s toddler years, when Sam had put him to sleep with the adventures of a lion coincidentally named Matthew, who liked to build things and always got into trouble because he acted without thinking. (Matt had never taken the hint, Sam was sad to say.)

When Katie had joined the family, Matthew the Lion gained a partner in crime. Once upon a time, Kathryn had been a cheetah as quick-witted and devious as Katie, but after a few years of bedtime stories, Katie had insisted that Matthew’s friend should be a pigeon instead. Sam and Matt had both tried to talk Katie out of it (or at least substitute a more respectable bird, like a falcon), but Katie was adamant. Karen finding a stuffed pigeon for Katie only cemented the change.

By now, stories of the lion and the pigeon were as familiar as they were silly, and both of Sam’s children listened attentively as Kathryn the Pigeon knocked down the tree house Matthew the Lion was building and led him on a chase around the city that ended with the post office on fire and a new duck pond in the middle of the nearby subway station.

Even Matt was laughing by the time Karen appeared with an offering of macaroni and cheese with hot dogs. Sam reached around Katie to accept his bowl, wrapping up his story so they could put on a movie during dinner. Karen popped the disc in, then sat beside Matt, smoothing his hair back from his face. He scrunched up his nose, then shifted so he was leaning against her, while Katie remained a ball wedged up against Sam.

Sam smiled at Karen, then kissed the top of Katie’s head. His kids were a handful sometimes, and much too smart for their own good, but at the end of the day Sam loved them both with all his heart. He wouldn’t trade days like this for the world.


End file.
